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These are silvery fishes with moderately deep to somewhat slender, compressed bodies and a distinctive concave ventral profile to the head; the mouth is very protractile, extending downward when protruded; the teeth of the jaws are tiny and brush-like and there are none on the roof of the mouth; there is a single dorsal fin, elevated anteriorly, and the dorsal and anal fins fold into a scaly sheath at their base; the scales are large and finely rough.

These fishes occur on sand or mud bottoms, frequently in brackish environments. A few species are regularly seen on the sandy margin of reefs. Gerreids are predators of buried organisms which they capture by plunging their protrusible mouth into the sediment, afterwards ejecting the sand through the gill openings. Food items include polychaete worms and small crustaceans.

Gerreids are distributed circumglobally in tropical to temperate areas. There are about 40 species in eight genera, with 11 species (10 endemics and one neotropical) from four genera in our region.

Jordan , D.S. and Bollman, C.H., 1890., Descriptions of new species of fishes collected at the Galapagos Islands and along the coast of the United States of Colombia, 1887-88, by the U.S. Fish Commission steamer 'Albatross'., Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 12:149-183.

Jordan , D.S. and Gilbert, C.H., 1882., Descriptions of nineteen new species of fishes from the Bay of Panama., Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1:306-335.

Jordan , D.S. and Gilbert, C.H., 1882., List of Fishes now in the Museum of Yale College, Collected by Prof. Frank H. Bradley, at Panama, with Descriptions of Three New Species., Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 5:620-632.

Jordan , D.S. and Gilbert, C.H., 1883., List of the fishes now in the museum of Yale College, collected by Prof. Frank H. Bradley at panama, with descriptions of three new species., Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 5(1882):620-632.

Love, M.S., Mecklenburg, C.W., Mecklenburg, T.A., Thorsteinson, L.K., 2005., es of the West Coast and Alaska: a checklist of North Pacific and Artic Ocena species from Baja California to the Alaska-Yukon border., U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, 288pp.